Drawing on city’s heritage

FOR the past eight years, Bree Galvin has made Bendigo her muse.

The graphic designer draws on the historical architecture and heritage sites of the city, printing her illustrations on anything from tea towels to posters.

Galvin launched her company This Is Me, Bree during COVID-19 lockdowns, when she realised all the inspiration she needed was right at her doorstep.

“I was just driving home and just looking at how beautiful and wonderful all our architecture is and it just hit me like a bolt of lightning, ‘we’ve got so much here, why am I concerned with anywhere else?’,” she said.

“We’ve got so many iconic things right here in Bendigo, it was like the idea was hatched from that. It was a real moment of, this is what I need to do.”

Since starting her project, Galvin has gone from strength to strength, taking on commissions, being featured at Bendigo Bank and being part of Bendigo Venues and Events lockdown collection of art What I Did Last Week.

“By doing this artwork series I’ve met so many people and because my work seems to resonate with a lot of people, it’s just really expanded my community,” she said. “It’s been a fantastic adventure everything about it has been positive.

“I put a few pieces into the What I Did Last Week program and one of my pieces ended up on the front cover of one their catalogues so that was extremely supportive.

“That was really good in the fact that it helped with isolation… it was a really good way of connecting to other people and seeing what other people were doing, documenting lockdown.”

One of her latest pieces, an illustration of Bull Street, draws on the style and fashion of yesteryear with a personal retro touch Galvin has developed.

“I love the drawing, but I really love delving into research on the fashion of the day, so that’s Pinterest and Instagram and general research on the internet,” she said.

“For that piece I used Christian Dior pieces, and garments worn by Audrey Hepburn. I just really enjoy the pop culture.”

To order your own piece of unique Bendigo illustrations, visit Galvin’s Instagram instagram.com/thisisme.bree or check out her work at Organise My…., Percy and Percy, Uniquely Bendigo and Bob’s Boutique.